It is understood the News Corporation chairman and chief executive and Sun proprietor met with the journalists to allay concerns that their careers and futures have been left in limbo as they continue to be bailed and rebailed following arrests that in most cases took place in January and February last year.

Two sources said he expressed concern about the role the MSC had played. "He questioned whether setting up the MSC was the right decision," said one.

Sources said that at the meeting on Wednesday, Murdoch vowed to continue to pay the arrestees' legal fees and offer whatever support was needed. However he said he could not, for legal reasons, tell them what would happen with regard to their employment if any were charged and found guilty.

Insiders said the Sun editor, Dominic Mohan, and News International's new chief executive, Mike Darcey, also attended the meeting.

The MSC has been heavily criticised for handing over internal emails to Scotland Yard, a decision that Murdoch has until now defended on the grounds that the company had no choice but to cooperate with the police.

Many of the 24 arrests of Sun journalists have been based on information handed to the police by the MSC, leading to concern that it was breaking one of the principle tenets of journalism – to protect the identity of sources.

The MSC was set up in July 2011 at the height of the furore over News of the World phone hacking to root out any allegedly illegal activity by News International journalists.

In Murdoch's own words during his evidence to the Leveson inquiry last year, the MSC "has actively cooperated with the Metropolitan police as well as with the United States Department of Justice, turning over evidence of alleged or suspected illegality, and responding to all requests for information. This has led to the arrests of a number of NI employees."

One of the first things the MSC did was hand over 300m internal emails to a police unit who were invited to share an office with the News Corp team in a building adjacent to the Sun's headquarters in Thomas More Square in Wapping, east London.

The ensuing arrests have shocked staff in the Sun newsroom and in February 2012 Murdoch flew into London to try to sooth nerves, announcing that he was reversing the decision to suspend 10 journalists who had been arrested over allegations of corrupt payment to police officers and other public officials for stories.

He visited the Sun newsroom giving his backing to members of staff arrested, telling them "everyone is innocent unless proven otherwise".

But the arrest count subsequently doubled and morale is said to have plunged in the Sun newsroom. Many have now been on bail for more than a year while one journalist, Jamie Pyatt, was arrested in November 2011.

Murdoch's summit comes ahead of a court appearance on Friday for two Sun journalists who have been charged – defence editor Virgina Wheeler and Chief reporter John Kay.

The MSC is continuing to co-operate with police but is to be absorbed into the Murdoch group's legal department by the end of this year.

The media group wants to fold the work of the MSC, whose chief members were Will Lewis and Simon Greenberg, into the department run by global legal counsel Gerson Zweifach.

Lewis has already been given a new role in New York, where he will be chief creative officer, at the new publishing company which will be created as a result of the News Corp demerger later this year. Greenberg is expected to get a new job in relation to Fox Sports.

News International declined to comment.

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